


An Inch at a Distance

by ownedbyacat



Series: Sane, Safe, Alive [5]
Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types
Genre: Gen, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-11-22
Updated: 2013-11-22
Packaged: 2018-01-02 08:44:58
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,594
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1054788
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ownedbyacat/pseuds/ownedbyacat
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Clint had never wished more for the ability to fly. Getting to Coulson from his perch took far too much time and the man wasn’t moving.</p>
            </blockquote>





	An Inch at a Distance

“I’m gonna wring someone’s neck when we get back,” Clint growled into the comm, sighting down an arrow. It was mid-afternoon and the old, stripped cotton mill was filled with light. At least visibility wasn’t an issue. Though if struggling to see had been their only problem, Clint would have taken it. Gladly.

“Can’t we have one mission – just one – that goes smoothly? Or is that too much to ask?”

“We’ve had missions go as planned.” Coulson’s voice was a soft huff in Clint’s ear, reminding him – as if he needed reminding – of their current predicament.

“Yeah? Name one.”

Coulson knew better than to answer him when Clint was in a strop. Clint was used to goatfuck missions. He could cope with maps that were wrong, targets that didn’t show and even ammunitions dumps that blew up in his face. He could handle hours in searing heat, drenching rain or freezing cold, but this.... Someone was so going to get it in the neck! Several someones. Even if Clint ended up in the brig for it.

He shifted his stance, careful not to give away his position, while he scoped the warehouse inch by careful inch. For the third time. When Hill had intercepted them that morning and amended their orders, Clint couldn’t help the feeling of déjà vu. She was doing that more and more often, tagging little unexpected jobs at the end of their official ones, and Clint kept wondering why. This morning, she’d asked them to detour for a simple pickup.

_Simple, my ass._

Getting to the site had been the simple part. After that, simple had excused itself. Clint’s internal alarms started screaming as soon as he stepped out of the rental car. Coulson’s had been, too, if the stiff set of his shoulders was any indication.

The place Hill had sent them to was a dead drop; a quiet, out-of-the-way location where undercover operatives left messages to be collected by a courier. Only problem was, the place was far from quiet. It was out of the way, an abandoned factory site in the Derbyshire Dales, but at some point in the recent past developers had moved in. The huge billboard at the entrance to the site talked at length about rejuvenation and reviving the site’s proud industrial heritage, but all Clint could see of said rejuvenation were a few randomly placed diggers and idling workmen who were a lot bulkier than they really needed to be.

Of course they hadn’t rushed right in. Even if Clint had wanted to, Coulson insisted on sticking to the book. Clint used to snark at him about it, until Coulson had confided one night when they were stuck waiting for an extraction that the one time he had let himself be persuaded to skimp on the recon, half the team hadn’t made it back out. Clint kept it zipped and played scrupulously by the rules ever since.

Their detailed reconnaissance yielded nothing. No sign that the workmen were more than they appeared. No sign of any suspicious activity. And no sign that the drop actually contained a message that needed collecting, either. Which was why Clint ended up high in the stripped out roof space, while Coulson entered the cavernous factory floor through a side door.

Coulson on point wasn’t usually how they did things. Clint hated it. He hated it more that every argument he could muster was pointless before he opened his mouth. At least, they were both on edge, expecting trouble – so when trouble arrived...

Two of Coulson’s three assailants had arrows in their throats before they could get within five feet of Clint’s handler. The third man tried to ram a knife into Coulson’s back. He died of a broken neck and Coulson acquired a new combat knife.

“Do you think that was it?” he whispered into the comm, silently making his way deeper into the interior.

“No. That was too easy.” Clint’s internal alarm was still screaming away and he didn’t dare shift his attention from Coulson’s form. He thought he heard a tiny sound, turned his head and caught a hint of movement. He yelled a warning into the comm and watched his handler throw himself sideways without a second’s hesitation. Coulson had just made it to cover when a hail of bullets tore through the space he had occupied a moment earlier.

“Sir?”

“I’m ok.”

“I can’t see a thing. Don’t move.”

Coulson had tucked himself into the shelter of a brick column and an old dividing wall. He just fit into the tiny corner space, provided he didn’t shift too much. Clint couldn’t see Coulson’s assailant from his current position, however much he twisted and turned.

“Changing position. Don’t move.”

Clint swung to another beam, narrower and much less stable. The place the fourth man had fired from was empty, but given where Clint had been, and considering where he was now... Clint narrowed his eyes. Inch by inch his gaze travelled down the gap between the dividing wall and the brick column that sheltered Coulson.

“There’s a blind spot low on the dividing wall. About five metres right behind you.”

“Do you have a shot?” Silence. Then an urgent whisper. “Barton? Do you have a shot?”

“I do, but...”

“Take it.”

“What? No. Wait. Let me explain...”

“I told you to take the shot, Barton.” Phil Coulson’s voice was a commanding hiss, but Clint didn’t move. The bow was steady in his hand, the arrow not moving from the tiny target he could just make out. Everything in him screamed at him to eliminate the danger to Coulson, to do as ordered, but... he couldn’t.

“No,” he said firmly. “Not without you realising that...”

“What? What is it?”

Clint drew a deep breath and let it out. It didn’t calm the fear boiling through his gut, the sudden conviction that this one time, when he was the only thing standing between Coulson and death, he would miss. There had been other times, other dangers, but never one with such a small margin for error.

“Barton. Talk to me.”

The familiar phrase, the calm voice... they settled Clint’s mind like nothing else could have done right then. “The only line of sight I have is between the wall and your left cheek,” he answered, voice slow and precise. “That gap’s an inch, maybe two. If you move to give me room, you lose cover.”

“So I won’t move.”

“Phil...,” Clint’s voice shook as he spoke the name. “You’ll see it coming. You’ll see the arrow. Nobody can...”

“Barton.” There was a moment of silence, then Coulson’s voice came over the comm: calm and sure and full of faith. “Take that shot.”

The archer blinked his vision clear and focussed. His fingers curled around arrow and bowstring. Muscles bunched as he drew. Eyes never moving from the tiny gap he released his breath ...and then his fingers.

ooO xXx Ooo

Clint had never wished more for the ability to fly. Getting to Coulson from his perch took far too much time and the man wasn’t moving. Clint’s heart tried to hammer its way out of his chest. Coulson had to be unhurt. He hadn’t missed his shot. He couldn’t have.

“Sir? Phil... talk to me.” He didn’t care about the pleading note in his voice. He just needed to know...

“I’m fine.”

Coulson’s voice was a mere thread, soft with wonder. When Clint reached him – after hurriedly checking that the last of their assailants was no longer a threat – he hadn’t moved from his meagre cover. His back was plastered to the brick, the column all that was holding him upright. His breath huffed out between half opened lips in quick, soft gasps and when he looked up at Clint his eyes were wide, the pupils blown to midnight black.

It wasn’t a look Clint associated with a dismantled Derbyshire cotton mill. Or with Coulson, for that matter. This was a look that belonged with tangled sheets, soft lights and softer moans. And it was so completely out of sync with everything surrounding them that Clint couldn’t even appreciate it properly.

 A thin red line marred Coulson’s left cheek, as fine as a paper cut. Clint cupped a palm around Coulson’s jaw and traced the mark gently with his thumb. “That’s from the fletching,” he said very softly. “That’s how close the arrow was.”

He stared intently at the cut, not realising how little space there was between them or how intimately he was touching the other man until he felt Phil’s warm breath fan across his cheek. He jerked away then, face flaming and not knowing where to look.

“Clint.” Coulson’s hand on his arm stopped his flight. “That was one hell of a shot.”

“No more than fifty others.”

“Don’t say that. I’ve seen you shoot thousands of times, but this... this was...”

He trailed off, still breathless, and suddenly Clint got it: the wide-eyed look, the quickened breath, the flushed cheeks. Steady-as-they-come Coulson was an adrenaline junkie, turned on by danger. Clint couldn’t believe that he hadn’t known that, hadn’t noticed it once since they’d started working together.

The broadest grin he could muster split his face. “I wish I’d met you when I was still in the circus,” he declared. “It takes someone very special to stand unmoving while being shot at. The audience would have adored you.”

And seeing Coulson look as if he couldn’t wait to be ravished was a total bonus. But that stray thought, Clint kept to himself.


End file.
